TDmobile Corporation achieves company-wide operational digital transformation, increases productivity with Yellowfin BI
Background
TDmobile Corporation is a company specializing in mobile communication and information communication services. As a distributor for Japan’s major telecommunications carriers, TDmobile operates 300 carrier stores nationwide for consumers, and develops and provides mobile solutions and Internet of Things (IoT) products in addition to selling mobile phones to corporate customers.
The company, established in 2009 through the merger of two Toyota Group companies and their mobile phone divisions, DENSO Corporation and Toyota Tsusho Corporation, joined BIC CAMERA Group, a leading domestic electronics retail chain in Japan, in 2023 with the aim of further expanding its business.
“Yellowfin has enabled us to build a system that allows us to perform in-depth analysis of major carrier commissions from a variety of perspectives.”
Kohei Furuta, Group Leader of Operation Management Group, Corporate Planning Department, Corporate Division, Tdmobile Corporation
Challenge
Lack of analytics system for accuracy and standardization of reporting
According to a survey by the Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the mobile phone penetration rate in the country was 90% at the end of fiscal 2009, when TDmobile was established, and exceeded 100% in 2011. As of the end of September 2023, the figure was approximately 170%, which means each person in Japan has at least one mobile phone.
Against this background, the sales policies developed by each telecommunications carrier have become increasingly diverse, and many companies operating in the mobile phone sales agency business have found it difficult to cope with the rapid pace of change as a system. In this increasingly complex mobile phone sales business, TDmobile faced the following three issues:
The first issue was the need to implement a system for analyzing carrier commissions. “Carrier commissions are becoming more and more complex each year, as they include not only compensation for each individual initiative, but also support payments for the results of overall initiatives (store evaluation). Since the indicators that make up the store evaluation fluctuate every month, we needed to implement a system that would allow us to quickly and accurately analyze such increasingly complex carrier commissions,” said Kohei Furuta, Group Leader of Operation Management Group, Corporate Planning Department, Corporate Division, TDmobile Corporation.
The second challenge was to improve the accuracy of accounting. “At the time we deployed Yellowfin, the monthly closing date was the fifth business day of each month. On the other hand, the settlement data provided by the carriers required for monthly settlement was the morning of the fifth business day at the latest. Prior to the implementation of Yellowfin, we were not able to make a final posting by the closing date, so had to use an estimated posting method (i.e., canceling the previous month’s estimate and posting the final data at the next month’s monthly closing). Prior to the introduction of the store evaluation system, carrier commissions were simple and straightforward, so the accuracy of estimates was almost accurate. However, as carrier commissions became more complex, the error rate increased year by year, and this had an impact on correct management analysis. Therefore, it was necessary to eliminate the use of estimation and introduce a system that allows final accounting by five business days,” Furuta continued.
The third issue was to automate the creation of invoices to clients. “Before Yellowfin, our administrative staff manually created monthly invoices for each of our clients. The work process of each administrative staff member had become individualized, making job rotation and handover difficult. In addition, since invoices were provided to clients at the end of each month, clients requested that invoices be provided as soon as possible. Therefore, we needed a system that would standardize the work of our administrative staff and also significantly reduce their working hours,” said Furuta.
Solution
Easy-to-use embedded analytics with greater data capture ability
To address these issues, the company initially considered refurbishing its own core business system. “We tried to refurbish the existing system, but we gave up on the idea because it would have required a new construction scale cost to achieve the requirements we were looking for, and there was a possibility that a medium-scale modification would be required for every future change in the carrier’s policies. We abandoned the idea of building our own system and began seriously considering implementing a publicly available BI tool,” Furuta revealed.
Around April 2020, TDmobile began to consider implementing BI tools. They chose Yellowfin from among a number of BI tools. “The reasons why we selected Yellowfin were, first, it is a system that meets our requirements, and second, it is easy to use. For us, Yellowfin is positioned as a core business system, so it was important that it be intuitive and easy to use, even for users without strong IT skills,” said Furuta. The company began using Yellowfin at the end of 2020.
Results
Data-driven decision-making and better data GBV capture
The implementation of Yellowfin has already delivered significant positive results for TDmobile. First, they now have a system that allows them to analyze carrier commissions. “In the past, we had only been able to manage our forecasting and actual results for fixed items such as terminal trading profits, ongoing commissions, and other maintenance fees, however, with the introduction of Yellowfin, we have been able to establish a system that enables in-depth analysis of major carrier commissions from various perspectives,” said Furuta.
Secondly, by the fifth business day of each month, accounting for the current month was realized, and accounting for estimates was abolished. With the elimination of quotations, the data became what it should have been (financial results without errors), and it became possible to conduct the correct management analysis with the correct financial results data from the sixth business day of each month.
The third effect was the realization of automatic generation of invoices to clients. Invoices to clients are now automatically generated by formatting them in Yellowfin reports. In doing so, they have created a simple and straightforward system that does not make the work process of the administrative staff individual, and they have also created a simple and low-effort business flow.
As a result, the number of man-hours spent by each administrative staff member was reduced by nearly 90%. Specifically, the number of working days that used to take about 10 working days each month was drastically reduced to about 2 working days, and the time required to send invoices to clients was also shortened, contributing greatly to reducing the workload of the administrative staff. Furthermore, the standardization of this work has made it possible to enable job rotation of administrative staff.
Future
TDmobile has achieved digital transformation of its core business operations through the introduction of Yellowfin. In the future, the company plans to make full use of the data analysis capabilities enabled by Yellowfin to keep up with changes in carrier commissions, plan store policies unique to the company, improve store evaluations, and increase sales.
“The introduction of Yellowfin has advanced the digital transformation of our core business operations. This initiative has attracted interest from other companies in the industry, and we have received several inquiries about it,” Furuta revealed.
It took about 11 months for Tdmobile to implement Yellowfin into its operations, with some struggles in the lead-up to the implementation. One was the difficulty in interviewing the people in charge. “We conducted interviews to take stock of each person’s unique duties in order to standardize operations, and that took a lot of time and effort,” said Furuta.
It took about a year to build a consensus on the standardization of operations. This was done before the decision to implement Yellowfin.
In Japan, where the population continues to decline, competition in the mobile phone sales business is expected to become more intense. In order to develop a business that satisfies both carriers and consumers under such circumstances, it is essential to make full use of data and enhance business productivity. TDmobile, which implemented Yellowfin as a powerful tool and became one of the first in its field to realize digital transformation, has high expectations for its continued growth.
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